South32 Alcoa deal

Dow hits record 52,899 but chip stocks crater. June payrolls: 57k vs 115k expected. Rate hike odds slashed. We cover the jobs miss, what it means for the Fed, Meta’s $145B AI capex scramble, oil flattening at pre-war levels, gold surging on dollar weakness, and why 87% of the S&P 500’s H1 gains came from chips alone. Plus the 1990s Desert Storm parallel for where inflation goes from here. No show Monday (July 4th) — back Tuesday. Catch Bulls vs Bears this afternoon for the full H1 wrap.

Semiconductor stocks suffered their worst session in months as a 6.3% plunge in the SOX index followed reports that OpenAI had halved AI inference costs. Meta surged 8.8% on cloud infrastructure plans while Fed Chair Warsh said inflation risks had eased at the ECB’s Sintra forum. ASX futures point 23 points lower ahead of tonight’s early US payrolls release.

Wall Street closed its best quarter since 2020, with the S&P 500 up 14.8% and semiconductor stocks doubling on a record-breaking AI rally. Gold posted its worst quarter since 2013 as dollar strength and rate-hike bets crushed the metal, while U.S.–Iran talks resume in Doha with the Strait of Hormuz still contested.